The Completion Agenda

Michigan Community College Association

Traverse City, MI

July 26, 2013

Terry O’Banion

obanion@league.org

Three Key Questions

1. What is the Completion

Agenda?

2. Why is it important?

3. What really works to help

students succeed?

Question One

What is the

Completion Agenda?

The Mission of Completion

The mission of the

Completion Agenda is to

double the number of

students who by the year

2020 earn a one-year

certificate, associate’s

degree, or transfer to a four-

year college or university.

Completion Agenda

• President Obama: 5 million more

CC grads by 2020

• Lumina: 60% increase by 2025

• Gates: double number of grads

• CC Org: 50% more by 2020

• C&U Org: “critical campus priority”

• Utah: 66% by 2020

• Anne Arundel: double by 2020

The Gates Foundation

“The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has identified the

community college as a key player in education and is supporting its

role in the national agenda to double the number of low-income

young adults who earn a postsecondary credential….

investing $475 million over four years in its Postsecondary Success

strategy.”

The Lumina Foundation--2013

In 2011, 36.8% of Michigan’s 5.2

million working-age adults held a

2 or 4-year degree.

By 2018, 62% of all Michigan jobs

will require a postsecondary

degree.

Measure of America 2013-2014

Michigan, the only state

with a 2010 American HD

Index score lower than its

2000 score, saw the

greatest decline in human

development over the past

decade.

June 19, 2013

Michigan Center for Student Success

1. Enhance student success

communities of practice.

2. Promote use of data.

3. Develop a sustained student-

success research agenda.

4. Encourage state-level policy action

and collaborative college efforts.

Student Success Initiatives • Accelerated Learning Program

• Achieving the Dream

• Adult Completion Policy Project

• Aspen Prize

• Benefits Access for College Completion

• Breaking Through

• Consortium of Veterans Benefits

• Credentials that Work

• Degrees Qualifications Profile

• Michigan College Access Network

• Project Win-Win

• Talent Dividend

Question Two

Why is the Completion

Agenda important?

Why Important?

• Once first in the world, America

now ranks 16th in the percentage of

young adults with a college degree.

• The World Economic Forum ranks

the U.S.’s educational system 26th

in the world.

Why Important?

The U. S. still ranks in the

top 5 most-educated G-20

countries for its older

workers but ranks 15th

among the 25-34 age

group.

Why Important?

• For the first time in our history, the current generation of college-age Americans will be less educated than their parents’ generation.

• “If your daddy was rich, you’re gonna stay rich, and if your daddy was poor you’re gonna stay poor.”

Esquire, January 2012

Why Important?

• 14% of CC students do not

complete a single credit in first term

• Almost 50% drop out the first year

• 60% need remediation

• 33% recommended for dvlp. studies

never enroll in those courses

Question Three

What really works to

help students

succeed?

Magic Practices

• Learning Communities

• First-Year Experience

• Contextual Instruction

• Project-Based Learning

• Supplemental Instruction

• Student Success Course

• Dual Enrollment

• Early College High School

“Best Practices”

“While colleges will likely need to

adopt some new practices and

adapt some older practices,

practice-based reforms cannot be

the primary work undertaken by

colleges participating in

Completion by Design.”

Venezia, Bracco, & Nodine 2011

“Best Practices”

Adopting discrete “best

practices” and trying to

bring them to scale will not

work to improve student

completion on a substantial

scale.

Davis Jenkins

April 2011—CCRC

Guidelines

Guidelines for Student

Success

Guidelines for Institutional

Success

Guidelines for Student Success

1. Every student will make a

significant connection with

another person at the college

as soon as possible.

2. Key intake programs

including orientation,

assessment, advisement, and

placement will be integrated

and mandatory.

Guidelines for Student Success

3. Every student will be placed in a

“Program of Study” from day one;

undecided students will be placed in

a mandatory “Program of Study”

designed to help them decide.

4. Every student will be carefully

monitored throughout the first term

to ensure successful progress; the

college will make interventions

immediately to keep students on

track.

Guidelines for Student Success

5. Students will engage in courses

and experiences designed to

broaden and deepen their learning.

6. Students will participate as full

partners in navigating college

services and the curriculum and

will take primary responsibility for

their own success.

Guidelines for Institutional Success

What do colleges need to

do to ensure that the

Student Success

Guidelines are met?

Guidelines for Institutional Success

1. A leader or core of key

leaders must champion the

Completion Agenda and be

able to rally a critical mass

of faculty and staff to

commit to the effort.

Role of Leaders

“There are many important

aspects of the Student Success

Agenda---But significant change

will not occur—and stick—

without visible, persistent

leadership from the college

president or chancellor.”

Byron & Kay McClenney 2010

Guidelines for Institutional Success

2. All decisions regarding

policies, programs,

practices, processes, and

personnel will be based on

evidence to the extent it is

possible to do so.

Guidelines for Institutional Success

3. Colleges will realign current

resources and identify

potential new resources to

support the goals of the

Completion Agenda.

Guidelines for Institutional Success

4. Colleges will apply

appropriate technological

innovations to create,

implement, and monitor

student success to

optimize efficiency and

effectiveness.

Guidelines for Institutional Success

5. Colleges will create and

implement guidelines for

rapid, expansive “scaling

up” of successful

programs and practices.

Guidelines for Institutional Success

6. Professional Development

for all college stakeholders

will focus on student

success and completion as

the highest priority.

AACC 2012 Futures Commission

Colleges need to find ways to make

student success central to the work

of everyone on campus. Effecting

this transformation will require a

clear and steady commitment to

professional development across

the institution, focused relentlessly

on student success and completion.

The Aspen Institute

In our work with high performing

community colleges, we have

learned that institutional

transformation focused on

student success always depends

on substantive and sustained

programs of professional

development.

What Do We Need?

In the words of poet

T. S. Eliot

we need leaders who are

willing

“to disturb the universe.”

The Completion Agenda

Failure

is not an

option.

Terry O’Banion

obanion@league.org

Ancora Imparo

“Still I Am Learning.”

Michelangelo

League for Innovation

Access, Success, and

Completion: A Primer for

Community College Faculty,

Administrators, Staff, and

Trustees

Terry O’Banion 2013

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